A studio is under construction. A refrigerator and a few chairs are set up for a break room. Cubicles are to arrive soon. And, tellingly, a guitar sits ready to be played.

"This is Jason's version of an incubator," said Jason Kates, 52, a serial entrepreneur, musician and formerrace car driver, pointing to the new 10,000-square-foot space in the Las Olas Riverfront complex in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

Kates has leased most of the third floor for a digital media and entertainment incubator, a self-funded launching pad for start-up businesses. The first occupant is his own company, Southern Stars, whose new studio is to be the site of live-streaming concerts featuring local and national musicians.

He's wants the incubator to provide artists a new audience platform and the opportunity to earn money without the grind of being on the road.

"I'm trying to build something meaningful," said Kates, also a singer and songwriter.

The incubator is one of several popping up in South Florida as an improving economy encourages more people to embrace the risks and rewards of entrepreneurship.

In July, a technology incubator opened in Coral Springs to focus on start-ups in the technology, digital art, and health care fields. Broward College is working to get a general business incubator up and running this fall. And the established technology incubator Enterprise Development Corp. at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton has expanded twice in the past year.

Consumers will be able to subscribe to Kates' online concerts for 99 cents. They won't just passively watch performances. They'll be able to interact with the artists, perhaps asking questions such as, "What inspired the song?"

"If you don't like it after five minutes, it was 99 cents," he said.

A small audience will be in the studio and the performance will be available to anyone with a computer, tablet, Apple TV or Google TV. His company will also take its live-streaming capabilities on the road, capturing performances at clubs and concert halls.

Some concerts will be brought to the incubator by Kates' first tenant, the production company Driven Entertainment Group.

Driven Entertainment, founded in 2005, produces two annual music conferences. The next is scheduled for May 15-18 in Fort Lauderdale. The conferences are an opportunity for emerging artists to meet with music companies, said Dominick Centi, Driven Entertainment's chief executive.

"If we're going to work together on live-streaming concerts, it's a good match," Centi said about joining the incubator.

Kates said streaming video provides other opportunities, including the potential to offer classes or interactive sessions involving a variety of experts, such as life coaches. He is also looking for related digital and media companies to join the incubator.

Les Garland, a radio and TV personality who consults with advertising and entertainment companies, said Kates' idea is in the early stages, but "I think he has a concept and idea that has incredible potential."

Garland, whose company is AfterPlay Entertainment in Miami Beach, is a longtime friend and adviser to Kates. Garland said he admires the entrepreneur because "he's got this creative side mixed with the scientific."

Kates' varied career includes stints as a portfolio investment manager, a boxing promoter, a race car driver and time in retail video production.

He began as a money manager in 1986 at Oppenheimer & Co. in Fort Lauderdale. In 1995, he founded RMS Networks, which develops in-store promotional videos.

In 2010, he founded rVue Holdings, an advertising technology company now based in Chicago. He took rVue public. Kates and other executives of Argo Digital Solutions, a subsidiary of rVue, are defendants in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale by Argo investors. The investors allege Kates and other defendants violated securities laws by transferring company assets to rVue, leaving Argo insolvent.

Kates denies the allegations.

Litigation is one of the pitfalls of entrepreneurship. And while not all his ventures have been successes, Kates said he has learned that a viable concept is critical. It's best "to develop an idea into a product and then create a company around it."